Over 300 People Hospitalized With Mysterious Illness In India, One Dead

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TOPLINE

At least 345 people in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have been hospitalized with an unidentified illness that includes a range of symptoms like seizures, nausea, loss of consciousness and has led to at least one fatality — potentially creating another public health challenge as the region continues to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

KEY FACTS

•	The outbreak of the illness has centered around the town of Eluru, with the sole fatality being a 45-year-old man, who died on Sunday.

•	The cause of the illness has yet to be established but local authorities said that all patients, currently 345, have tested negative for Covid-19, ruling it out as a possible cause, the Hindustan Times reported.

•	YS Jaganmohan Reddy, the state’s chief minister, visited the patients on Monday while the regional opposition party has accused him and his government of mishandling the situation while suggesting that the illness may have been caused by contaminated water supply.

•	The government, however, has claimed that water samples from the affected areas showed no signs of contamination and no viral infections were detected among the patients.

KEY BACKGROUND

Earlier this year, 11 people died in Andhra Pradesh after a chemical gas from a factory run by LG Polymers leaked near the city of Visakhapatnam. Thousands of people had reported being sick after the incident and hundreds had been admitted to hospitals, with some needing to go on ventilators. The incident had forced the state to divert resources like ambulances, away from Covid-19 cases to help treat those affected by the leak.